Rewley Boogaloo, we'll miss you

Well, the surgery revealed problems way worse than anyone expected and Rewley's not coming home. It turns out Rewley's small intestine had telescoped into the large intestine and scarred up, basically meaning both small and large intestine were not working. The vet had never seen anything like it apart from reading about it years ago in vet school as a very rare case. He seemed to think that this was probably something he was born with, or that happened soon after he was born given the extent of the damage. What's remarkable is that he could still digest any food at that point, and this just made the surgical discovery even more surprising. The vet said he could try removing the damaged tissue, but it was so extensive he probably wouldn't even wake up, and if he did, his chance of survival (and it would be a miserable existence) was slim.

He was a tough little puppy who must have been feeling just awful but still ran up to every stranger to lick them. It's going to feel a lot more empty in our new house without him.

Surgery

Tomorrow morning we're taking Rewley in for surgery. Our vet consulted with a specialist in internal medicine and after giving Rewley an ultrasound, they think he might have a partial obstruction that wasn't detected in the ultrasound nor in x-rays following a barium series. All his blood tests and parasite tests came up normal, too. It's really scary to take the little guy in for surgery, but we know that if we don't, he won't have much of a chance of getting better. The poor little guy has been mopey on and off since we brought him back from the emergency hospital. Every day we thought he was getting better, he'd feel worse the next day. He's lost weight and just mopes around barely interested in his toys. We've tried every medication that might help, as well as a limited diet in case it was allergies, and we've run out of options besides surgery.

We can't be certain what's going on in his little tummy until his surgery is done, but we do know that this will give us some answers and hopefully fix things up so he can be a crazy puppy again. It just breaks our hearts to see him so uncomfortable. The recovery should be similar to a spay, we're told, so that's good.

So please think happy thoughts of good health for our little puppy!